Remove twinking entirely by massively increasing cooldowns? For crafts that produce items, double the returns on them? One craft, twice the results? Yes branching would decrease, but then players may go up?

There are several players running around the human sphere who are more than capable in several non-overlapping craftsets, more so than characters who have thought to stick with one and maybe do a little fighting on the side, I'll not mention who. Some come to the forum asking for the skill-points pool to be increased!

If you've a cooldown timer of say, 48 hours? (Or better yet, don't tell us what it is and as soon as it reaches our ears, change it) that's two days you can enjoy roleplay, still craft, still train but do so without the World of Warcraft stats behind your eyes.

Put simply the more versatile players become, the less need there are for other players. The more PC's we have to rely on to get anything the stronger the game becomes. Yes, there will be hiccups in such a system (IE, the lodge) but that whole thing generated a whole lot of roleplay and competition and emotion. More than other things around the same time, it was a major talking point and still is. Kudos.

Hawkwind wrote:Put simply the more versatile players become, the less need there are for other players. The more PC's we have to rely on to get anything the stronger the game becomes. Yes, there will be hiccups in such a system (IE, the lodge) but that whole thing generated a whole lot of roleplay and competition and emotion. More than other things around the same time, it was a major talking point and still is. Kudos.

Great point here. It is better in my opinion to encourage specific mastery for PCs. When you have to build up from a low level you'll usually focus on your intended area, while being able to spread around hold over points might change that somewhat.

The thing is, there's been a precedent for a while of taking an extraordinarily long time to complete tasks, and orders, and stuff like that. Things are made on order, after you order them, and remarkably slowly in a lot of cases, to the point that weapons will wear down to perma-damaged before you can get ahold of a decent new one.

Not to mention when you order something ridiculously expensive from someone and they just disappear off the face of the earth, a personal favorite of mine. :l

So you sometimes just need to do stuff yourself, because the status quo of "just wait, you'll get it when you get it" wears thin for me, especially when it's because there's no oquality weapons in bog-iron available, let alone iron ones, or honed.

And when player numbers are low, which happens, you end up with a hole in the system when you have single-player or couple-of-player monopolies, as we saw back in fall with armoring. No one could get any armor or have their armor repaired.

And if you increase timers, people are gonna make it even more difficult and laborious for the customer to receive basic crafts. It'll be like, "could be a month, don't cross your fingers" for something rudimentary like one helm. Plus, costs will increase to meet how much "labor" investment there is in it versus gathering tasks like logging/hunting which are very profitable.

So, all this to say, sometimes it pays to have versatile, active characters who can deliver on multiple fronts. Because as much as I'd like every smith and leatherworker to be the master of their kingdom, you need to be able to fill the gaps when they're just way too slow or they don't log in for a while and the world needs to continue without them.

Everything gets smaller now the further that I goTowards the mouth and the reunion of the known and the unknownConsider yourself lucky if you think of it as homeYou can move mountains with your misery if you don't

Real wrote:The thing is, there's been a precedent for a while of taking an extraordinarily long time to complete tasks, and orders, and stuff like that. Things are made on order, after you order them, and remarkably slowly in a lot of cases, to the point that weapons will wear down to perma-damaged before you can get ahold of a decent new one.

Not to mention when you order something ridiculously expensive from someone and they just disappear off the face of the earth, a personal favorite of mine. :l

So you sometimes just need to do stuff yourself, because the status quo of "just wait, you'll get it when you get it" wears thin for me, especially when it's because there's no oquality weapons in bog-iron available, let alone iron ones, or honed.

And when player numbers are low, which happens, you end up with a hole in the system when you have single-player or couple-of-player monopolies, as we saw back in fall with armoring. No one could get any armor or have their armor repaired.

And if you increase timers, people are gonna make it even more difficult and laborious for the customer to receive basic crafts. It'll be like, "could be a month, don't cross your fingers" for something rudimentary like one helm. Plus, costs will increase to meet how much "labor" investment there is in it versus gathering tasks like logging/hunting which are very profitable.

So, all this to say, sometimes it pays to have versatile, active characters who can deliver on multiple fronts. Because as much as I'd like every smith and leatherworker to be the master of their kingdom, you need to be able to fill the gaps when they're just way too slow or they don't log in for a while and the world needs to continue without them.

75% of the things you have mentioned will happen regardless of how many skills people have under their belt, in fact it works the other way just as good, if PC X who does most of the stuff disappears for a length of time, oh no we have no armorsmith/weaponsmith/leatherworker anymore, the whole of Utterby grinds to a halt, your reasoning makes no sense as it is surely better to have backups, alternatives and the likes to prevent the one PC from going to enjoy his real life. Your argument is flawed, the reasons you give are presented as problems when in fact they are the solution to the problem you have just brought up.

If players start to leave and things go down, then may be a time to switch back to having single PC monopolies over things. The fact is, when you have a small cluster of NPC's that are the go-to guys for a number of things, other people by default are left as useless, this is what drives players away, not waiting an extra day or so for a slightly better sword than the one you are currently swinging.

It's not about getting a slightly better sword, it's about getting any sword at all at this point. Or, you know, the basics a new character needs to not get slaughtered by wildlife. Or refined ingots made, which apparently only one inactive PC in the entire town is trusted with doing.

And if you think it's just one more day, boy have you not ordered anything IG for a long while. It can be RL weeks/months for the most rudimentary orders.

And please, please, don't make this an argument over semantics and what is flawed and what doesn't have correlating evidence and all that. This is about my experience with the game since July, just communicating what I see and my own approach. Yep, I play a character who took 8 skills, some of them combat and some of them crafting, and I plan on learning more. No shame.

Everything gets smaller now the further that I goTowards the mouth and the reunion of the known and the unknownConsider yourself lucky if you think of it as homeYou can move mountains with your misery if you don't

I do say shame, I find it unreasonable, unrealistic and unsupportive. The more niches you fill the less there are for others coming to the game. Futhermore this is a beta, new ideas to be tested is the key thing here. As for ordering you can not base your entire argument on one clans (in)actions. I have ordered things and had them delivered in a very timely manner, not next day but certainly reasonable given the times people play.

Hawkwind wrote:I do say shame, I find it unreasonable, unrealistic and unsupportive.

And if we want to even be reasonably competitive toward the other sphere, which we are not, by anyone's reckoning I should think, we need to be able to provide. I'm gonna keep doing my thing, you do yours, I just think increasing craft timers is ten types of ridiculous given the way things seem to go.

Everything gets smaller now the further that I goTowards the mouth and the reunion of the known and the unknownConsider yourself lucky if you think of it as homeYou can move mountains with your misery if you don't

We outnumber the orc spbere by a fair margin, we always have done. Again this is entirely IG, key people putting chokeholds on there own industry because they dominate it so completely and surrounding ones that people would rather beg and wait and cry rather than use a lesser craftsman. The other sphere does not, we are spoiled by our choices and our freedom.

We have a god damn special race (and his cohorts) and they still trounce us thoroughly but as said it is IG, I believe forcing players to rely on others through narrowing of skills and crafts will help remedy this.

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em! Orcs could really use an influx of new characters to bring some freshness into the roleplay.

If human side has a lack of equipment, that's definitely due to social reasons and failures to cooperate rather than game mechanic ones, as they've been given a big advantage as far as proximity to resources, and security for their crafters. The idea of having redundant crafters for each skill is a great one for multiple reasons. The biggest one being that there's nothing more irritating for a new character than entering with a craft skill that you never have any chance to use. Due to the clever way that all the crafts are set up, each finished project has smaller craftable components required to make it (wire for rings, tanned pelts for leather etc). Taking on apprentices also can make for great rp and gives new players a purpose, there's no reason not to do it.

A really bad sword with a short blade lies here. look sword This sword hardly even a sword. It's kind of really just a piece of metal bent like a sword. Its blade is rather short. Kind of pathetic, really.

I do not like this option. I always hate starting out so low as a character, but a new pc is a new pc and you should have to start from scratch with them. If you don't want to grind new skills then be more careful with your current pc to preserve the skills you have already accrued.

A brown-furred, cheese-loving mutt says, "Mendev is back and we elected him mayor, and now we're all transforming into spiders."

- Achieve high combat skill levels from grinding, avoid heavy risk-taking to avoid losing all of the grinding time you've put into your character, continue grinding, engage in social roleplay. Due to the lack of want to take risks, be less proactive than you could be in dealing with threats and pushing plot-lines that are combat-oriented.

- Eventually die. Be devastated at the loss of your character, but moreso at the notion of having to start out with a weak character that will require umpteen hours of grinding.

The only true way to improve combat player proactivity, and reduce the immense amount of play-time that grinding demands, is to remove skill points from the equation entirely.

When you roll a character, you select their skills/attributes, and they are proficient with those skills and attributes. You add a number of them to allow for different builds, they all cost a varying number of points from your attribute pool (ex: Greatsword Experience costs 1 point, whereas Greatsword Mastery costs 3 points, etc). You consider adding in negative traits as well that give you more points to spend in character generation ("Bad Leg", "One-Eyed", "Frail Bones", "Chronic Illness", "Overweight", etc).

You consider allowing people to apply to spend RPP to acquire new attributes, with proof of reason why they should have access to them (ex: logs of training with a Greatsword to improve Greatsword Experience to Greatsword Mastery, or logs of helping to build a fortress to unlock Woodworking). If you wanted to, you could add more combat "moves" (ex: shield-bash) to support attributes and character build variety, since player-skill would become more of a factor in a combat system that didn't use skill points to determine potency.

If you really wanted to, you could remove stat points as well, and replace them with attributes both positive and negative (ex: "Brute Strength", "Simple-minded", "Hardy Constitution", "Clumsy", etc). All of these attributes-replacing-numerical-systems become an immediate map of how to play your character, and actually do more to increase build and character variety than a system that ultimately has a map of how to roll/grind to become the best combat character possible; it's my belief that the "best build" for SOI was deciphered and copied early on after the game re-opened, and demands a lot of grinding to get the most mileage out of.

Crafts still have branching, but branching and the crafts that you can learn are no longer tied to skill level checks, so you no longer need to grind meaningless crafts to reach the skill levels you need to unlock the meaningful crafts.

This would be a complete system overhaul, but if I were to re-imagine the RPI Skill System with the purpose of reducing and removing grinding, increasing meaningful roleplay, and reducing fear of character death, this is exactly how I would go about doing it.

I'm not quite following your whole concept, though I'll confess I did not study it and likely won't, even if you expand on it. (Not that I'm not interested or think it may not be worthwhile, it's simply a matter of time.) It sounds like this may be something that Japheth may be supporting in his Futuremud engine. I'm not sure. You'll have to ask Wolfsong or Krelm.

We're going to be sticking with the system we have now. The amount of work we have on our plates at the moment is quite sufficient for our team and adding something like this would turn the whole game upside down.

Thanks all for the discussion thus far. It's been interesting reading.

The greatest enemy to propaganda or even counter-propaganda is open, unadulterated channels of free opinion.

Why are you pushing this? It seems like something that would open up far more issues than it would fix. Likely a terrible idea for a game in such a delicate stage with a small staff with a heavy workload.

Why are you pushing this? It seems like something that would open up far more issues than it would fix. Likely a terrible idea for a game in such a delicate stage with a small staff with a heavy workload.

I think he's pushing it as his ideal solution, not necessarily a practical one. It's a high minded concept but I think it would require a complete engine overhaul. It might work really amazingly in theory, but applying it to what is already here would probably be intensely difficult.

Nimrod wrote:We're going to be sticking with the system we have now. The amount of work we have on our plates at the moment is quite sufficient for our team and adding something like this would turn the whole game upside down.

Nimrod wrote:

Patty wrote:Let's just remove seeing your skills altogether.

I can do this.

Isn't this a, uh. Total redesign of the system we've got going? Given that skill-levels are also visible in crafts, and given that you branch crafts at certain levels, and also given that you gain certain abilities tied to skills at certain levels(bash/feint and ward at talented in their respective skills)? Ignore/focus, of course, come to mind, and I'm sure there's more things I can't think of off the top of my head.

I'd say I'd mind skill visibility being gone, but I only just got back, so I won't put that forth as an argument. But certainly turning skill visibility off isn't as simple as it's put forth, and much more like a complete redesign of the system(unless you feel like leaving in those handful of obvious holes).

I can guaran-god-damn-tee you that anyone intimately familiar with this engine will know what level their skills are at regardless of being able to see them or not, possibly within a 1-5 point margin of error. But also, it really doesn't matter either which way so I don't see why you'd change visibility as it stands now. Or conversely, why you wouldn't.

I hope you die right now, will you drink my chemical?

Brian wrote:See, the thing that I admire about WorkerDrone is that he's an optimist!

Why are you pushing this? It seems like something that would open up far more issues than it would fix. Likely a terrible idea for a game in such a delicate stage with a small staff with a heavy workload.

I think he's pushing it as his ideal solution, not necessarily a practical one. It's a high minded concept but I think it would require a complete engine overhaul. It might work really amazingly in theory, but applying it to what is already here would probably be intensely difficult.

This. While I think the overhaul would be worth the work, I am aware that now is likely not the best time for SOI to apply energy to such an overhaul. However, becoming aware of an issue (skill grinding being a very negative thing for RPIs) and applying energy to solving said issue (even hypothetically) is always a worthwhile exercise.

Songweaver wrote:This. While I think the overhaul would be worth the work, I am aware that now is likely not the best time for SOI to apply energy to such an overhaul. However, becoming aware of an issue (skill grinding being a very negative thing for RPIs) and applying energy to solving said issue (even hypothetically) is always a worthwhile exercise.

You have had chances to remedy this, why would you have not implemented this during your (short) tenures in other games?

Songweaver wrote:This. While I think the overhaul would be worth the work, I am aware that now is likely not the best time for SOI to apply energy to such an overhaul. However, becoming aware of an issue (skill grinding being a very negative thing for RPIs) and applying energy to solving said issue (even hypothetically) is always a worthwhile exercise.

You have had chances to remedy this, why would you have not implemented this during your (short) tenures in other games?

I would suggest this is a conversation best suited for PM as it will not have relevance to the proposal in the thread or the discussion of its applicability for -this- particular game as things stand!

You, Hawkwind, do not speak for the masses anymore than I do. Your opinion is your own.

My belief in the problem presented in this thread, and my personal, idealized solution for it, comes exactly from my years of work running RPIs -- and from my experience playing this incarnation of SOI. If I'd had my current level of experience when I created Atonement, there are probably a number of things that I would've approached differently, skill system included. Take that for what you will, but I'd hope to suggest that outside-the-box thinking may be most effective at solving age old RPI issues like this one.

While I think that the idea of hiding skill levels to reduce obsession with grinding is interesting, Kory adeptly lists a number of logistical issues with this tactic that would have to be solved.

Another, simpler tactic to reduce reliance on grinding to the point where it affects the proactivity of players:

Allow RPAs to offer skill level boosts when players apply their skills to accomplish major in-game achievements (building a town expansion) or tackle major plots (slaying the giant spider colony and Queen). If proactivity towards plots and roleplay offers a systemized, consistent means of offering skill improvements, that could very well encourage people to spend less time grinding crafts or spam-sparring, and more time engaging in the world and stories around them. This sort of system wouldn't favor high RPP players, but would work with (or without) the concept from the thread's original post.